MechWarrior Online goes Open Beta today! (Free to play)

[cDnStealth]

MechWarrior Online‏@MechWarriorF2P1h
in 2 hours time, we will reveal something exclusively on fb & twitter! Stay tuned! #mwo #mechwarrior

Interesting. I hope it's the Annihilator.

[cDnStealth]

I hadn't played in a few weeks but another major content patch dropped on Tuesday. They've added a new map, Canyon Networks. It's about the size of Caustic Valley. I've had a few rounds on it now and I really like it. I love the verticality of the map which should provide JJ capable mechs some options.

Spoiler for size

Spoiler!

They've also added another medium mech, the Blackjack. Lots of balances and tweaks also included.

[cDnStealth]

Just to drag this over from the other thread.

Originally Posted by PsYcNeT

Ugh. MWO. Paul Inouye just keeps getting crazier and crazier. Guy needs to stop listening to the voices in his head and start listening to players.


No sign of CW in sight either...

I am curious as to what you mean? I haven't played too much lately but I like that mechs can't run up 70 degree hills anymore. I am interested to see how the heat penalties effect alphas.

The only things I am not too pleased about are 3PV and Project Pheonix.

[PsYcNeT]

Originally Posted by cDnStealth

Just to drag this over from the other thread.



I am curious as to what you mean? I haven't played too much lately but I like that mechs can't run up 70 degree hills anymore. I am interested to see how the heat penalties effect alphas.

The only things I am not too pleased about are 3PV and Project Pheonix.

In the last 4 months, the game has overgone numerous changes. Ghost heat is bizarre, the player count has halved, and brawlers are non existent.

Every change that has been made to the game recently seems geared to turning MWO into a robot sniper game, with a heavy focus on punishing brawlers.

Hope you love PPCs!

[cDnStealth]

Originally Posted by PsYcNeT

In the last 4 months, the game has overgone numerous changes. Ghost heat is bizarre, the player count has halved, and brawlers are non existent.

Every change that has been made to the game recently seems geared to turning MWO into a robot sniper game, with a heavy focus on punishing brawlers.

Hope you love PPCs!

With the heat being bumped up a point for the PPC/ERPPC and the penalty for firing more than 2 I could see that cutting down on all the PPC builds. Especially once the SRM spread is fixed.

I know it's pretty ridiculous right now but I've managed to mess some people up with my brawler builds. I remember rounding a corner in my 4G and running into 2 Highlanders who were carrying nothing but LRMs. An easy 2 kills. I find it really comes down to your team. Most pugs end up sitting on opposite sides of the map exchanging fire. It's actually frustrating to play with those people.

[PsYcNeT]

Originally Posted by cDnStealth

With the heat being bumped up a point for the PPC/ERPPC and the penalty for firing more than 2 I could see that cutting down on all the PPC builds. Especially once the SRM spread is fixed.

I know it's pretty ridiculous right now but I've managed to mess some people up with my brawler builds. I remember rounding a corner in my 4G and running into 2 Highlanders who were carrying nothing but LRMs. An easy 2 kills. I find it really comes down to your team. Most pugs end up sitting on opposite sides of the map exchanging fire. It's actually frustrating to play with those people.

Well even playing with goons in proper 8-mans gets really tiring, especially since the amount of min-max builds gets smaller every 2 weeks.

The utter lack or mention of Community Warfare, implementation of 3rd person, and all the garbage interviews Paul has been doing lately are just the icing on the #### cake.

[cDnStealth]

Originally Posted by PsYcNeT

Well even playing with goons in proper 8-mans gets really tiring, especially since the amount of min-max builds gets smaller every 2 weeks.

The utter lack or mention of Community Warfare, implementation of 3rd person, and all the garbage interviews Paul has been doing lately are just the icing on the #### cake.

It was my understanding that CW was coming in September when the game officially launches. Or was it after that?

[PsYcNeT]

Originally Posted by cDnStealth

It was my understanding that CW was coming in September when the game officially launches. Or was it after that?

Who knows. I remember them saying last October it would be in December, and then in December it was in March (with the Clan Invasion...), and then in March it was supposed to be for June, and then in May they said by the end of Summer, and now they haven't said #### for 3 months.

[FlameOn]

12v12 dropped yesterday. I started playing again since early closed beta days and it seems a bit more fun now.

Haven't been keeping up with this for months. What is the issue with features? They're coming out slower than expected original timelines?

[cDnStealth]

I've played a lot less over the past couple months. Before, I'd drop in at least a couple rounds a day now maybe once a week. I take back what I said before. I find it extremely frustrating to play with a bunch of randoms. They're all a cowardly bunch of terrible players. Everyone seems to want to hide behind rocks and exchange LRM/PPC/Gauss fire. So I usually end up either trying to make something happen (which almost always ends up with me being alone and horribly out-numbered) or sitting there watching my team get blown apart. I then quit out of disgust and play something else.

Admittedly, I am currently trying to power through leveling up a bunch of mechs I no longer even want. The Highlander and Trebuchet are awful mechs. There is maybe only one variant I like and the rest are hot garbage. I don't mind my TBT-5N because it fills a nice role that none of my other mechs can which is as a highly mobile LRM support platform. My 7K and 7J are just terrible. Anything I can do with them I can do far better with any of my Hunchbacks.

The Highlander is 90 tons of ####. It's firepower is so concentrated on the one side that you may as well take an XL engine because if you lose that side you're already dead. They sure don't like giving us mechs with asymmetrical hard points.

[PsYcNeT]

Even after throwing over 200 bucks at it, the game is on indefinite hold for me until CW is released. Playing glorified deathmatch over and over and still not having a Solaris type arena, or group matching to vs goons, or anything resembling area control systems is just grating on me.

[FlameOn]

I'm still having fun with the limited death match features and conquest gaming. Selected an Atlas as my first mech for the sole reason there are much fewer mechs that I need to master in order to actually get Elite and Master status. I don't really like the F2P model of having to grind these out on each individual mech variant and not having XP apply cross variants of mechs. Agreed... Highligher isn't a great mech.

My understanding of CW is it's being held up by the UI redesign? Yea, things haven't changed too much since Christmas from what I can see and maybe some of the additional features get put in before release. I'll play what available for now with the hope this game doesn't just get released as another World of Tanks death match crap fest.

EDIT: Thought on CW is I don't want MWO to be just another MMO with no goal like WOT. CW gives you goals, incentives to play longer other than just for grind.

[Rathji]

Been thinking about playing MWO again. I have about 20 million IIRC and was about to buy a new mech when I last stopped playing.

All my current mechs are Jenners and are currently outfitted as a scout/spotter or with a simple Med/Small Laser complement. I would be looking for something that is heavy/assault.

What are some of the good models/builds out now?

[cDnStealth]

Originally Posted by Rathji

Been thinking about playing MWO again. I have about 20 million IIRC and was about to buy a new mech when I last stopped playing.

All my current mechs are Jenners and are currently outfitted as a scout/spotter or with a simple Med/Small Laser complement. I would be looking for something that is heavy/assault.

What are some of the good models/builds out now?

Not much of an assault player myself but you could always go with the tried and true Atlas DDC. There are a couple decent Stalkers as well. Just stay away from the Highlander lol.

As for heavies, I am still a huge fan of my Cataphract 3D. That one I have fitted with 2x PPC, 1 Gauss and 1 LL. The 1X is also pretty good. For a time I was running it with 5 ML and an AC20 which isn't as effective these days. Ignore the 4X as the hard points are extremely limiting.

The Jagr is pretty good too.

[Rathji]

Don't think this has been posted here, but I thought I would give it some press as it is for a cause that is close to my heart.

http://mwomercs.com/sarah

In May 2013, we were overwhelmed with support for Sarah Parries, one of our youngest MechWarriors who tragically lost her life to cancer in Vancouver, Canada. We would like to reiterate our deepest condolences for Sarah's loved ones, who have expressed their sincerest appreciation for the incredible outpour of sympathy from the MechWarrior Online Community.

We are delighted to have been petitioned by our fans to take this as an opportunity to honor our fallen comrade and to raise donations for the Canadian Cancer Society through the sale of a unique version of Sarah's favourite Mech.

Purchase this special Mech for $10 USD and we will donate the proceeds raised to cancer research in memory of Sarah and MechWarriors affected by cancer worldwide.

*100% of the proceeds will be donated to the Canadian Cancer Society, net of applicable Sales Taxes and third-party transaction fees such as credit card and payment processing fees. These fees typically represent less than 4%. For clarity, IGP and PGI are not making any money off of the donated funds.

You even get a special mech bay for it, so it won't clog up your mechlab.

[cDnStealth]

Ya that actually came about as a result of a community petition after PGI had posted Sarah's story. I've considered buying it. Not really a fan of Jenners but that's not what's important. Probably will end up getting it.

[Rathji]

Yeah, I didn't really care about the Mech so much, but it comes with its own Mech Bay makes it pretty much a straight donation. The fact that I am leaving in 10 minutes to take my Mom for her second round of Chemo turned it into a no-brainer for me.

[Slacker]

I think I'm going to get too next payday.

[FlameOn]

Sarah's Jenner mech raised 122k for cancer.
Update for the players, UI 2.0 is to be released this coming update. Community warfare to be unveiled at the September launch event.
http://mwomercs.com/news/2013/08/730...veloper-update

[PsYcNeT]

This is from Mechalingua, taken from those who listened to a Q&A from NGNG. I haven't listened yet, so take this with a chunk of salt.

Will UI 2.0 be available at launch?
No

Will UI 2.0 include a lobby system? What will that be like?
They have plans for a way cool () lobby, but it won't be in the initial release (). "Only thing he mentioned that was implied that would be in the initial build was a new ingame store."

Will UI 2.0 bring any additional information or functionality to the After Action Report?
The statistics we have on the website will be available within the game client ~eventually~

Will there be any elements of Community Warfare released with launch?
No.

Where has the Public Test Server been? Will it be back?
Apparently it's gone for technical reasons but should be back in September sometime. I guess running it for a couple hours every week maybe was over-taxing it!

Will more player numbers and statistics ever be made available?
Numbers could be misconstrued () and it would help their competition (who would that be, and where can I register?) to know their numbers. Ekman says they will publish figures "when there is no mistaking their meaning" which is fantastic because they already bragged about ONE MILLION REGISTERED ACCOUNTS!!! in the past and bragged about player retention./b]

How about that player retention?
10% player gains for the past two patches. Apparently ~50% of founders are still around! Hooray! Good job! You've only fully alienated half of your paying founders. The metric for retention is "Do you play at least monthly" e.g. if you fire up the game for one of the patches, you count as being retained. Don't patch until the game is good you knobs. Bryan says "most" founders who remain bought phoenix.

What is the most popular mech?
With founders mechs, the Catapult (no shock). Without founders mechs, the Cataphract. Unsurprising.

Will we see a free-cam spectator mode? What would it be like?
Plans for this.

Will something be done with single heatsinks to make them a compelling choice and not a no-brainer upgrade once you pass a certain c-bill threshold?
No lol PGI is so ####ing dumb, maybe when the clans arrive they might do something
:cripes:

Regarding the recently updated 'Mech movement system, ie going uphill, is that based on weight or scale?
"Class weight" although they previously explained it was due to arbitrary bounding categories, so perhaps this is the new PR spin on that instead of saying "arbitrary with no regard for game balance or chassis role".

Is 'Mech scaling being looked at?
Bryan says 'Mech scaling is also about balance -- since PGI cannot balance the game, they cannot properly scale the mechs. They might look at "egregious cases" that are probably out of touch with community views

Will 'Mech quirks ever evolve into something more, like 'Mech specific weapons capabilities etc?
No. Oh, right, that requires code changes that were instead spent making Ghost Heat a reality. I'm editorializing by this point I guess?

Are certain 'Mechs being looked at, like the Awesome and the Hunchback 4J?
Blah blah we want to check all the mechs to be sure they're wonderful snowflakes and fix "egregious cases"

Will 'Mechs ever be able to crouch? What would the gameplay advantages and/or disadvantages be?
Eventually.

Cheevos?
Eventually

So basically, they will have nearly nothing new beyond UI 2.0 for launch. GO PGI WOO.